LETTERS
LETTERS Mirror, mirror The article on what has gone wrong with Ms. ["Has Ms. Undergone a Sex Change?" Susan Milligan, October] was excellent. It pinpoints as well why we no longer read Ms....
...Torrey has come a long way since he began writing about mental illness in the 1970s...
...He said he wasn't sure what the doctor's diagnosis was, but his problem was caused by heavy lifting...
...Torrey, as a clinician, knows better than to promise dramatic cures...
...It is at the heart of our political philosophy...
...Torrey has set up a straw man in attacking the federally funded Mental Health Center System...
...Shall we make them safe by taking their freedom and removing them from the streets...
...it is more revealing than anything else they are reading on the subject...
...About eight years ago, a fellow employee complained of severe chest pains...
...Some of them become victims of street crime and so do some of the rest of us...
...Now it has become a monument to narcissistic Yuppiedom...
...The former need neurological/medical care, the latter need education...
...It is the group with brain diseases who comprise the estimated 75,000 persons with schizophrenia currently living in shelters and on the nation's streets...
...The primary purpose of involuntary medication is not to make the streets safe, however, but to provide treatment for persons who need it but do not know they need it...
...The decision to treat involuntarily has become overly complicated by procedural rules that often prevent those in need from getting help...
...GERALD WALCH Belchertown, Massachusetts The wrong road For this black man, raised when 90-95 percent of blacks worked at manual or semi-skilled labor, fewer than 10 percent went to college, none were in professional sports, unemployment among blacks was good when it was only 50 percent, and every societal function conspired to legitimize the inferiority of black people, it is instructive to observe the current efforts to prove that the black family is an endangered species...
...On my own, I set up an appointment for a hearing with the state's workers comp commissioner...
...The fact that CMHCs (and NIMH) had no interest in that primary mission and pursued other activities does not change the original mandate...
...The treating doctor's diagnosis was "chest wall strain due to exertion by heavy lifting ." I turned the accident report over to the company safety office...
...Patrick's Cathedral," September] toward the black family that one wishes the writer would meditate about...
...There are few cures but much good that comes from sound treatment...
...Torrey has lately and deservedly become a hero of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill by adopting a public stand favoring aggressive programs for the care of the mentally ill...
...It is currently the responsibility of the states...
...In due course, Joe called me to say that his comp claim was denied based on the grounds that he had a "myocardial infarction...
...I am a union counselor and handle, when asked, worker's compensation cases for members...
...In the process of reviewing it, however, I discovered several curious observations in the nurse's notes— "Mother hysterical...
...Torrey is an important contributor to the cause of raising public awareness, but he undermines his case by using distorted and tendentious writing...
...Weimer is wrong in asserting that "they were not set up primarily to treat the chronically mentally ill coming from state hospitals or anywhere else...
...This change to ever more complicated rules is abetted by some "public interest" law firms that have lost sight of a balanced approach...
...I have distributed it to my students in the "Campaigns and Elections" class I teach at the University of Virginia...
...The balance in procedural rules needs to shift back toward treatability and we must be careful not to promise the public and the politicians more than we can deliver...
...I have become convinced that distasteful practices and...
...As always, the present trashing of the black family is a model of erudite half-truths...
...The majority of these can be helped with medication...
...This debate is more legal than clinical...
...Merkur is the German word for Mercury...
...Three days later he was home...
...I was permitted to room in...
...CMHCs, in fact, were depicted as the new alternative to state mental hospitals...
...Flynn is executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill...
...He told me the reading indicated a superbly healthy human heart...
...I hope the article receives wide distribution if only to shame someone in authority into sponsoring them...
...Regarding the Community Mental Health Centers, Dr...
...I found myself getting very angry as I read the piece—which surprised me (and is a tribute to his skill as a writer) since I have come across many examples of such deceit, distortion, and outright lying in ten years of studying direct mail...
...LAURIE M. FLYNN Washington, D.C...
...I brought the man an accident report form and asked him to release his medical records to me...
...I have never said "there is no such thing as mental illness," but rather that psychiatric patients are comprised of one group with true brain diseases (e.g., schizophrenia) and another group with problems of living (e.g., existential crises...
...He was admitted to an intensive cardiac care unit...
...If one simply attempted to solve the problem of homelessness among the chronically mentally ill, many of whom are pathologically suspicious and reject help, one could do it not only by forcing them to take the medication but also by reincarcerating them in institutions...
...Those who persist are going to waste time, effort, and money, traveling up the wrong road...
...Her condition was later diagnosed as a feeding problem...
...I refer him to the congressional hearings on the original CMHC legislation in which the primary purpose of CMHCs was explicitly tied to the chronically mentally ill by everyone who testified...
...They had a broad mandate to serve the community through such innovative programs as consultation to schools, community education, crisis intervention, and program evaluation...
...If they are to be faulted, it is for the same error that Dr...
...if Susan B. Anthony were around, she'd picket Ms...
...The treatment of the chronically mentally ill is difficult and complicated...
...HANNAH KLEIN Wheaton, Maryland I'd like to report a misuse of medical records with which I was personally involved...
...These centers were set up originally as demonstration projects...
...WILLIAM SIMPSON Park Forest, Illinois...
...Mail frauds Steven Waldman wrote an excellent piece on direct mail ["The Hiroshima Hustle," October...
...Mother insists on receiving meals...
...With the other half untouched, the resolve by some white people to "do something" through programs conceived, constructed, and administered by them for the supposedly disintegrating black family, marches on...
...Regarding the involuntary medication of such persons, I agree that this is a social and political issue as well as a medical issue...
...Torrey risks—promising more than you can deliver...
...I can only hope my daughter's career choices won't be jeopardized because she has a "hysterical" mother who refuses to purchase a breast pump...
...His last couple of sentences are indicative: ". .we might not be applauding him today for recognizing the black family crisis two lost decades ago...
...One wonders when some simple reforms will be enacted...
...Or shall we spend money to make the streets safer...
...Although he has come full circle, he still uses misleading rhetoric...
...Torrey addresses a desperate situation, one we all hope to see resolved...
...There is a paternalistic bent about Mickey Kaus' attitude ["Building St...
...Since I was not the patient and since the notes did not contribute to an understanding of my daughter's condition, I asked to have the intrusive trivia deleted...
...When the insurance company denied our claim for benefits, the hospital did cooperate by providing me with the medical record...
...As such it deserves public debate...
...LARRY SABATO Charlottesville, Virginia Going on record It was gratifying to read Esther Schrader's article "Double Indignity" [October], and to realize that my ordeal with our hospital system is hardly unique...
...The hospital adamantly refused, claiming that the law prohibits removal of any information from a medical record...
...Since I had Joe's medical records, I had to presume the company's comp carrier had them too...
...Even the Kennedy legislation that he quotes only talks about treatment, not cure...
...They were not set up primarily to treat the chronically mentally ill coming from state hospitals or anywhere else...
...DAN KIRKLIN Indianapolis, Indiana A desperate situation We are always very pleased to see the media making visible the real issues that affect the mentally ill in our society ["Finally, a Cure for the Homeless," E. Fuller Torrey, September], rather than the often distorted and sensationalized images that so often appear...
...I work in a frozen food warehouse...
...I took Joe's EKG to a doctor I know and asked if the reading was compatible with a myocardial infarction...
...His assertion that the patient Cynthia could be "happy and normal" if forced to take her medication flies in the face of scientific literature...
...Mother refuses to pay for breast pump...
...I had the privilege of commenting in the San Francisco Chronicle then about his indefensible position that there was no such thing as mental illness...
...One minor correction: the excellent—and nonfawning—article on Donald Petersen says that "Merkur" is a made-up word designed for Euro-snob appeal...
...maybe even outright scandal characterize the whole industry...
...Pundits now speak of patients dying with their rights on...
...an `arthroscleritic' condition, hypertension, and an ulcer...
...LETTERS Mirror, mirror The article on what has gone wrong with Ms...
...Moynihan has gained some wisdom yet to be picked up by Kaus...
...It is indeed paternalism, but is similar to the paternalism we provide for other groups with brain damage who are unable to care for themselves (e.g., persons with mental retardation and Alzheimer's disease...
...The commissioner agreed with me that Joe's disability was caused by his employment...
...If Arnold Gingrich were alive today, he would kick some mirror= addicts out of those offices...
...In May 1984, my infant daughter was admitted to a local hospital with what appeared to be sepsis...
...The union refused to argue the denial, pointing out that we weren't qualified to make medical determinations...
...As a clinician, I still feel queasy treating someone involuntarily and can override that feeling only when I am sure that the patient is dangerous, or so disabled that he or she cannot survive without help, and that the treatment I have to offer can actually make an improvement...
...and why we will be letting our subsrciption to Esquire expire: Esquire was one of my favorite magazines in the '60s...
...We might have spent two decades solving it !' Perhaps Mr...
...SANFORD R. WEIMER, MD...
...Joe received $6,400 in compensation benefits, the union Health and Welfare Fund saved nearly twice that in medical expenses it would have had to pay on Joe's behalf, and I lost two day's pay and the next union election...
...Does this country want to take a paternalistic attitude toward those mentally ill persons who are not a danger to themselves or others and who simply wander the streets looking peculiar...
...Joe's medicals included lab reports and an admissions EKG...
...Orange County, California The author replies: Dr...
...Patients like Cynthia who are suffering from chronic illness and complicating personality factors can be helped sometimes...
...Weimer's recollections are not correct...
...I also had to presume that they ignored the medical evidence and relied on the diagnosis on the denial of benefits form concocted by two company flunkies...
Vol. 18 • December 1986 • No. 11
